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Antianxiety medications, including the tranquilizers Ativan, Valium, and Xanax, are used to treat
anxiety disorders.
Schizophrenia is treated with antipsychotic drugs, including Thorazine, Haldol, Clozaril,
Risperdal, and Zyprexa. Some of these drugs treat the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, and
some treat both the positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms.
Practitioners frequently incorporate the social setting in which disorder occurs by conducting
therapy in groups, with couples, or with families. One way for people to gain this social support
is by joining a self-help group.
Community mental health services refer to psychological treatments and interventions that are
distributed at the community level. These centers provide primary, secondary, and tertiary
prevention.
Psychologists use outcome research to determine the effectiveness of different therapies. These
studies help determine if improvement is due to natural improvement, nonspecific treatment
effects, or placebo effects. Research finds that psychotherapy and biomedical therapies are both
effective in treating disorder, but there is not much evidence that any one type of therapy is more
effective than any other type. What all good therapies have in common is that they give people
hope; help them think more carefully about themselves and about their relationships with others;
and provide a positive, empathic, and trusting relationship with the therapist—the therapeutic
alliance.
One problem with drug therapies is that although they provide temporary relief, they don’t treat
the underlying cause of the disorder. Once the patient stops taking the drug, the symptoms often
return in full force.
Data suggest that although some community prevention programs are successful, the changes
brought about by even the best of these programs are, on average, modest.